The LORD is slow to anger and abounding in loving devotion, forgiving iniquity and transgression. Yet He will by no means leave the guilty unpunished; He will visit the iniquity of the fathers upon their children to the third and fourth generation.' Sermons
I. NOTE THE CHARACTER IN WHICH MOSES CHIEFLY APPEARS. His first words indicate a concern for the reputation of Jehovah among the nations, and it would be wrong to suppose that this was not a matter of real concern, but it is evident the chief thought in his mind was how to secure mercy for rebellious Israel. He is the intercessor. All considerations he can appropriately urge are urged with the ingenuity of one who feels the calamity of others as his own. He is consistent here with past appearances on similar occasions. II. NOTE THE CONSIDERATIONS WHICH HE URGES. 1. He makes no attempt to extenuate the wickedness of the people. He can say nothing by way of excuse, lie does not plead as Abraham concerning Sodom, on the chance of a righteous remnant being found in the multitude. He does not distinctly plead for another trial, like the dresser in the vineyard (Luke 13:8, 9). The sin was fresh, patent, monstrous, coming as the climax of so much that had gone before. He does not attempt to make the sin of the people look less than the sin of the spies, but leaves all in its enormity. So we may say it is better for us not to go excusing self, when too often excuse but adds to existing sin. Our danger is to under-estimate our sin, to think of our sorrows and trials rather than our disobedience and ingratitude. God knows what may be said for us. At all times, and in all our transgressions, he remembers that we are dust. Let us rather aim to get a due sense of how much, how very much, needs to be done in us to make us holy and perfect. 2. He makes God's reputation among surrounding nations a matter of great concern. In God's government of the world, the consideration of his real glory is ever to be kept in view, and this of course is not dependent on what any man may think. Nevertheless, what men may think and say is by no means to be neglected. Whatever is done, some will criticize and jeer. Strange things have been said, and are said still, concerning the God revealed in the history of Israel. A monster of hideous attributes is conjured up and represented as the Deity of the Hebrews. Now as among men it is a consideration that their good should not be evil spoken of, if they can possibly arrange it otherwise, so, reverently be it said, a similar consideration may be present to God when he reveals himself in human affairs. What he said here asserted that there was no need for further probation of these Israelites. What Moses now suggests is that there was no need to cut them down at once, and good reason to do otherwise, so as to stop the mouth of Egypt and the nations of Canaan. 3. One more act of mercy would be consistent with God's character. God had said, upon the making of the two tables to replace the former two (Exodus 34.), that though he could not treat iniquity as a trifle, and must ever stamp on it signs of the serious way in which he regarded it, yet he was a God merciful and gracious, and disposed to pardon. Moses now humbly reminds God of these words, and pleads an application of them to the present transgression, he does not seem to have meant much by the word pardon; it was simply that God might turn away the pestilence. Indeed, for anything more it was not in the power of Moses to ask. A full pardon, a full reconciliation to God, these demand, as a pre-requisite, full repentance. And so far Israel had made no sign. Perhaps the people were dumb and stupefied with terror. Other people may ask pardon for us in a certain sense, but such pardon as will be complete can only come from the cry of awakened, enlightened, and truly penitent souls. - Y.
Pardon, I What book but the Bible has the courage to represent a man standing in this attitude before his God and addressing his Sovereign in such persuasive terms? This incident brings before us the vast subject of the collateral considerations which are always operating in human life. Things are not straight and simple, lying in rows of direct lines to be numbered off, checked off and done with. Lines bisect and intersect and thicken into great knots and tangle, and who can unravel or disentangle the great heap? Things bear relations which can only be detected by the imagination, which cannot be compassed by arithmetical numbers, but which force upon men a new science of calculation, and create a species of moral algebra, by which, through the medium and help of symbols, that is done which was impossible to common arithmetic. Moses was a great leader; he thought of Egypt: what will the enemy say? The enemy will put a false construction upon this. As if he had said, This will be turned against Heaven; the Egyptians do not care what becomes of the people, if they can laugh at the Providence which they superstitiously trusted; the verdict passed by the heathen will be: — God was not able to do what He promised, so He had recourse to the vulgar artifice of murder. The Lord in this way developed Moses. In reality, Moses was not anticipating the Divine purpose, but God was training the man by saying what He, the Lord, would do, and by the very exaggeration of His strength called up Moses to his noblest consciousness. We do this amongst ourselves. By using a species of language adapted to touch the innermost nerve and feeling of our hearers, we call those hearers to their best selves. If the Lord had spoken a hesitant language, or had fallen into what we may call a tone of despair, Moses himself might have been seduced into a kindred dejection; but the Lord said, I will smite, I will disinherit, I will make an end; and Moses became priest, intercessor, mighty pleader — the very purpose which God had in view — to keep the head right, the leading man in tune with His purposes. So Moses said, "Pardon"; the Lord said, "Smite"; and Moses said, "Pardon" — that is the true smiting. The Lord meant it; the Lord taught Moses that prayer which Moses seemed to invent himself. The Lord trains us, sometimes, by shocking our sensibilities; and by the very denunciation of His judgments He drives us to tenderer prayer.(J. Parker, D. D.) II. THE PLEAS BY WHICH HE URGED HIS PETITION. 1. The honour of the Divine name amongst the heathen.(1) The relations of God with Israel and His doings for Israel were well known amongst neighbouring nations.(2) If God should destroy Israel at a stroke, that also would be known amongst these nations.(3) The interpretation of such destruction by the nations would be such as would reflect on the honour of God. They would conclude that His resources were exhausted; that His power had failed to sustain and lead Israel onward: and thus His glory would be tarnished.(4) That this might not be the case Moses entreats the Lord not to disinherit the rebellious people. 2. The Divine character as revealed to Moses. 3. The truth of the Divine word. 4. The forgiveness which God had already bestowed.CONCLUSION: From this intercession of Moses let us learn — 1. How to plead with God for ourselves. 2. How to plead with God for others, and especially for His people. (W. Jones.) II. MAN IS NOW, AS MUCH AS EVER HE HAS BEEN, THE OBJECT OF GOD'S COMPASSION. III. GOD'S PURPOSE WITH REGARD TO THE HUMAN RACE IS NOW WHAT IT EVER HAS BEEN. (David Lloyd.) The intercession of Christians, who are already formed, is the leaven which is to leaven the whole earth with Christianity. It is one of the destined instruments, in the hand of God, for hastening the glory of the latter days. Take the world at large, and the doctrine of intercession, as an engine of mighty power, is derided as one of the reveries of fanaticism. This is a subject on which the men of the world are in a deep slumber; but there are watchmen who never hold their peace day nor night, and to them God addresses these remarkable words: "Ye that make mention of the Lord, keep not silence, and give Him no rest till He establish and till He make Jerusalem a praise in the earth."(T. Chalmers.) (ver. 18): —I. WHAT WE ARE TO UNDERSTAND BY THE MERCY OF GOD. It is His goodness to them that are in misery, or liable to it. Thus the mercy of God is usually, in Scripture, set forth to us by the affection of pity and compassion; which is an affection that causeth a sensible commotion in us, upon the apprehension of some great evil that lies upon another, or hangs over him. Hence it is that God is said, in Scripture, to be grieved and afflicted for the miseries of men. But though God is pleased in this manner to set forth His mercy and tenderness towards us, yet we must take heed how we clothe the Divine nature with the infirmities of human passions. When God is said to pity us, we must take away the imperfection of His passion, the commotion and disturbance of it, and not imagine any such thing in God; but we are to conceive that the mercy and compassion of God, without producing the disquiet, do produce the effects of the most sensible pity. II. THAT THIS PERFECTION BELONGS TO GOD. I will only produce some of those many texts of Scripture which attribute this perfection to God. "The Lord, the Lord God, merciful and gracious" (Exodus 34:6). "The Lord thy God is a merciful God" (Deuteronomy 4:31). "The Lord your God is gracious and merciful" (2 Chronicles 34:9). "Ready to pardon, gracious and merciful" (Nehemiah 9:17). "All the paths of the Lord are mercy" (Psalm 25:10). "Unto Thee, O Lord, belongeth mercy" (Psalm 62:12). "Merciful and gracious" (Psalm 103:8). "With the Lord there is mercy" (Psalm 130:7). And so (Jeremiah 3:12; Joel 2:13; Jonah 4:2; Luke-6:36), "Be ye therefore merciful, as your Father also is merciful." The Scripture speaks of this as most natural to Him. In 2 Corinthians 1:3, He is called "the Father of mercies." III. THE DEGREE OF IT. A God of great mercy. Scripture speaks of it as if God was wholly taken up with it, as if it was His constant employment, so that, in comparison of it, He doth hardly display any other excellency; "All the paths of the Lord are mercy" (Psalm 25:10); as if, in this world, God had a design to advance His mercy above His other attributes. The mercy of God is now in the throne; this is the day of mercy; and God doth display it, many times, with a seeming dishonour to His other attributes, His justice, and holiness, and truth. 1. Preventing mercy. Does not that man owe more to his physician who prevents his sickness, than he who, after the languishing, the pains of several months, is at length cured by him? 2. Forbearing mercy. And this is the patience of God, which consists in the deferring or moderating of our deserved punishment. Hence it is that "slow to anger," and "of great mercy," do so often go together. 3. Comforting mercy (2 Corinthians 1:3). 4. His relieving mercy, in supplying those that are in want, and delivering those that are in trouble. 5. Pardoning mercy. And here the greatness and fulness of God's mercy appears, because our sins are great (Psalm 78:38). And the multitude of God's mercies because our sins are many (Psalm 51:1).Uses — 1. We ought with thankfulness to acknowledge and admire the great mercy of God to us. 2. The great mercy of God to us should stir up in us shame and sorrow for sin. The judgments of God may break us; but the consideration of God's mercy should rather melt us into tears (Luke 7:47). 3. Let us imitate the merciful nature of God. 4. If the mercy of God be so great, this may comfort us against despair. 5. By way of caution against the presumptuous sinner. If there be any that encourage themselves in sin, upon the hopes of His mercy; let such know that God is just, as well as merciful. (Abp. Tillotson.) We may safely assert that Jeremy Taylor is none the less vigorous for illustrating the long-suffering of God by the Rabbinical story that the archangel Michael, being God's messenger of vengeance, had but one wing, that he might labour in his flight, while Gabriel had two wings, that he might "fly swiftly" when bringing the message of peace.(J. Pilkington.) God's mercy is so great that it forgives great sins to great sinners after great lengths of time, and then gives great favours and great privileges, and raises us up to great enjoyments in the great heaven of the great God. As John Bunyan well says, "It must be great mercy or no mercy, for little mercy will never serve my turn."( C. H. Spurgeon.) People Aaron, Amalekites, Caleb, Canaanites, Egyptians, Israelites, Jephunneh, Joshua, Moses, NunPlaces Egypt, Hormah, Kadesh-barnea, Red SeaTopics Abounding, Abundant, Acquitting, Anger, Bearing, Charging, Clear, Clearing, Disobedience, Entirely, Evil, Fathers, Forgiving, Fourth, Free, Generation, Generations, Goodness, Guilty, Iniquity, Kindness, Leave, Long-suffering, Love, Loving, Lovingkindness, Mercy, Overlooking, Plenteous, Punishes, Punishment, Rebellion, Sending, Sin, Sins, Slow, Sons, Steadfast, Third, Transgression, Unpunished, Visiting, Wrath, Wrongdoers, Wrongdoing, YetOutline 1. The people murmur at the news6. Joshua and Caleb labor to still them 11. God threatens them 13. Moses intercedes with God, and obtains pardon 26. The Murmurers are debarred from entering into the land 36. The men who raised the evil report die by a plague 40. The people that would invade the land against the will of God are smitten Dictionary of Bible Themes Numbers 14:18 1095 God, patience of 6688 mercy, demonstration of God's Library Moses the Intercessor'Pardon, I beseech Thee, the iniquity of this people according unto the greatness of Thy mercy, and as Thou hast forgiven this people, from Egypt even until now.' --NUM. xiv. 19. See how in this story a divine threat is averted and a divine promise is broken, thus revealing a standing law that these in Scripture are conditional. This striking incident of Moses' intercession suggests to us some thoughts as to I. The ground of the divine forgiveness. The appeal is not based on anything in the people. … Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy Scripture Weighed, and Found Wanting Order and Argument in Prayer The Spies Afraid of Giants Appendix ii. Philo of Alexandria and Rabbinic Theology. The Personality of Power. Exploring Canaan by Faith Trinity Sunday the Doctrine of the Trinity. The Scriptures Ninth Sunday after Trinity Carnal Security and Its vices. Synagogues: their Origin, Structure and Outward Arrangements An Exposition on the First Ten Chapters of Genesis, and Part of the Eleventh Thirdly, for Thy Actions. The Earliest Christian Preaching Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners: Numbers Links Numbers 14:18 NIVNumbers 14:18 NLT Numbers 14:18 ESV Numbers 14:18 NASB Numbers 14:18 KJV Numbers 14:18 Bible Apps Numbers 14:18 Parallel Numbers 14:18 Biblia Paralela Numbers 14:18 Chinese Bible Numbers 14:18 French Bible Numbers 14:18 German Bible Numbers 14:18 Commentaries Bible Hub |
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